The Devil You Know
by potterology
Summary: "Don't ever look a man in the eye and tell him he won't pull the trigger. Somebody has a gun in their hand, they got every notion of using it. My daddy taught me that." - 20 years after BDM, a Museum is robbed of more than art. Poss. multi chap. T for themes. Rayne.


**My first Firefly fic! I've not decided if it'll be multi-chapters, probably will be once I figure out a plot. It's set 20 years after BDM.**

* * *

Athens Capital Museum of History and Art contained, by far, the most extensive and valuable collections in all the system, outstripping the cultural significance of almost any other Core planet in leaps and bounds. The Mona Lisa, the remains of Lady Liberty, the collected works of Zhang Dali, a five hundred year old M-16 grenade launcher (encased, of course, the Earth-That-Was weapons exhibit was entirely conducted behind velvet ropes), and countless other treasures. And Norman Brail, curator and collector, was the master of it all.

For thirty years, Norman had presided over every bullet and bug that passed through the museum doors, cared and catered to all, and by now knew every nook and cranny and nuance of each exhibit. He was, more often than not the first to arrive in the morning and the last to leave at night, to such an extent that he had his own set of keys and even went so far as helping the cleaning staff with dusting and such like, just to ensure that the arrangements never ended up askew. He was proud of the work he did; and the tourists and visitors to whom Norman gave personally conducted tours were witness to it. Ordinarily, Norman enjoyed his time discussing the historical importance of the first space-capable engine with complete strangers, but today felt off. Something was sticking in the back of his mind and he just wasn't sure why.

The group was a bit more of a motley crew than he was strictly used to. Typically, his guests were of a humdrum sort; students, politicians, tourists from the farther out Core planets, or just journeyman that had some time planet-side. Today, however, the group consisted of a handful of parents and their children, a few ridiculously oversized mercenary types, a couple of young women who looked to be on their own and a bizarrely attentive young man who looked like he was might be experiencing enormous pain. All in all, Norman was unsettled.

But there was a job to do.

"And here," Norman could not stop the swell of pride in his voice as they came to his favourite part of the tour, "Is the priceless art collection. We do ask, as a courtesy, that you refrain from vid-capture, as it interferes with our security systems. I'll let you wander, for just a mo, as it is a rather large collection and one that I have hand-built from French renaissance over here," he pointed with a chubby finger to the far left of the room, "Right up to the breathtaking art of Wei Xing, the last painter of Earth-That-Was."

They spread out, talking and chattering, occasionally asking a question. The thin boy in pain stood close to one of the paintings - the Battle of Hastings Revisited - and began interrogating Norman on every brushstroke. So fervent was the boy's conversation and so earnest did his interest seem, Norman was captivated and, as a result, failed to see one of his guests sidle up to the lone security guard.

"You look bored," she said, conversationally. The security guard grunted, looking away. He was bored. Hell, he'd been bored every day of his life for the last six years. That didn't mean she had to point it out. "Now you look mad."

He turned away from her, directing his fierce glare at the back of Norman's fat, balding head. "You need something, sweetheart?" The endearment growled in the back of his throat.

"Now, that ain't any way to treat a friend_._" The girl pouted, eyelashes batting, heading shaking in admonishment. Angry, the guard huffed and turned on her.

"You ain't my friend, sister." His eyes, blue and hard, met deep brown and a jolt - indescribable, deeply disturbing, and utterly familiar - shot through him like a static shock.

"I ain't your friend yet. But I'm about to be."

The guard lifted an eyebrow. "That right?"

"Stay down, stay out of the way and keep 'em quiet. Thems the rules. Can you keep 'em?"

"Depends. What's in it for me?"

"You walk out of here a hell of a lot richer than you walked in. Deal?"

Money. Now, that was a language her could talk. No one could accuse him of being self-righteous and no mistake. "I think I can manage that."

"Shiny." The girl smiled, wide and shark-like and just a mite cruel, and before he could spit, had two pistols in her hands, pointed in the air. "Everybody down, you're about to get robbed!" Warning shots ripped the polite quiet in half and in all his life, the guard had never seen any kinds of people hit the ground so fast. _Gorram Core_, he scoffed, had they been on any Rim planet worth it's salt, there'd been a tussle and maybe some real shooting.

As it turned out, the girl was far from alone. The mercs that had come in with the group pulled mightily large weapons out from various places - pant legs and boots and chest straps - and got to herding the group into a corner. The thin oddball boy locked the doors save one, which led to an observatory next to a strategically parked med shuttle. Norman was shuffled to the head of the group, his quivering charges shoved behind. The girl rested the twin barrels of her pistols against her chest and paced, looking for all the world like a drill sergeant discussing the weather.

"Now, let's get square." She crouched, eye level with her fearful audience, pinning Norman with the hardest stare a man could face. "I ain't taking nothin' that's yours and nothin' you got any kind of rights to protect. You stay put, you stay quiet and don't get no ideas about playin' hero to the people, and everything'll be just shiny. To put it simply: Don't start none, won't be none. We square?" Just in case the nods were not unanimous, the girl pulled back the hammers on her pistols, which quickly achieved the desired effect.

"Steve," she called out behind her, eyes never leaving Norman. "You find it?" At the back of the room, the thin boy and one of the mercs were rearranging cabinets, hands smoothing over the blank wall behind it.

"Not yet." Another cabinet, more wall, then- "Yatzee." A complicated wall safe, an even more difficult to crack key code encryption and a fingerprint scan had all five members of the company clenching their jaws. Steve flinched. "We need the access codes. I can't hack this before someone notices us."

The girl smiled her shark grin again, turning to the guard. "Time to make yourself useful."

The guard stuttered. "Aw, hell, girlie, I ain't got no safe codes. I'm the muscle!"

"Yeah, genius, I know that. But there's gotta be somebody in this here group that knows what you don't. Care to point 'em out?" She cocked a pistol towards his nethers to get her point across.

"Him! That guy, right there. Norman! He's the damn cure-a-tore, he'll tell ya ever'thin ya need to know! Just… Stop pointing that thing so low." Somebody clearly hadn't taught the girl manners; it just wasn't fair to be threatening a man like that.

But the girl didn't seem to care, or mind. She turned her pistol on the fat, sweating man who was trying with every ounce of his body to fix her with a powerful glare, but ended up looking constipated. The girl got a look on her of pity and sympathy, turning on her knee to the curator.

"Well, Norm, looks like it's you and me on the dancefloor. We can tango," she pulled back a hammer, "or we can waltz." She eased the hammer down. "What's it gonna be?"

A few seconds went by, wherein Norman's face went from pale to green to red to puce in a matter of moments. Under some great pains, he muttered angrily, "Fourteen, twenty-two, sixty eight, seven, twelve. It'll open the safe and drop the security barriers around the exhibits."

Shark-Smile was back. "Was that so hard?" She stood, holstering a gun, and dashed to the keypad. "Be ready to load up. Get in, get it, get out." She smirked at one of the mercs as she began to type. "And you said nothing ever goes according to plan."

She hit enter.

And sirens split the world.

* * *

"That was very stupid, Norm." Sirens whirring, red lights blaring, the girl was a whirlwind of anger and pain. One of the kids started screaming, an event that seemed to push the leader of the would-be robbers to a perilous edge. She stomped over, fury coming out her ears, and set her pistol level at the young mother right between the eyes. "Either you shut her up or I will." Quiet cooing ensued. The girl turned back to Norman.

"You dumb _hundan_. See, you've gone and put me on a clock, something I did not want to happen. 'Parrently, you thought I was playin'. You put me in a powerful bind, Norm. Stevie?" One of the mercs perked up. "How many people in this room?"

Stevie paused. "Twenty-eight, not including us."

The girl nodded. "Steve?" The boy looked over at her. "How long before the feds crash our party?"

Steve shook his head. "Twelve minutes, maybe fifteen if they're slow."

The girl closed her eyes and let out a long breath of the suffering and hard done-by. Norman was twitching, sweating rolling in waves down his neck and forehead. She checked the bullets in her chamber and crouched in front of him again, her voice low and serious. "Twenty-eight people in this room. Twelve minutes for me and mine to get gone." She pulled her hammer back and settled the barrel directly between the eyes of a man to Norman's left. "You got twenty-seven chances to get that code right, Norm. And if the next words out of your mouth ain't helping me out or buying me time, so help me God I will drop every man, woman and child in this room till I get what I came for."

Norman balked. "You wouldn't-"

**BLAM**.

The man sprang back, his head cracking sickly on the floor, blood and brains spattering the faces of all those behind him. The girl screamed, "_TWENTY-SIX_!"

Utter silence engulfed the room. Even the mercs were stunned into quiet thought, the guard in the corner eyeing them all suspiciously, suddenly wondering at the deal he cut and the weight of the coin versus the weight of the guilt. The girl sniffed. Then pulled the hammer back again, this time pointed at the woman and the whimpering child from earlier, a spattered sheen of blood covering her cheek and forehead.

"Word of advise, Norm, should our paths ever cross again or you find yourself in dire need of some friendly words: Don't ever look a man in the eye and tell him he won't pull the trigger. Somebody has a gun in their hand, they got every notion of using it. My daddy taught me that." She leaned forward to rest a hand on his shaking shoulder, looking him dead in the face, and her voice dropped to a dangerously low tone, all trace of a Rim accent disappearing from her voice. "I will not ask you again." Her arm straightened, her aim true. The woman began to cry. Norman nodded to himself, defeated.

"Fifty-one, eighty-seven, sixteen, nineteen, twenty-seven." A low sob wrenched out of his chest, his bottom lip shaking. Her gun did not lower, but she looked over at Steve, who nodded dumbly. The sirens stopped, the red emergency lights flickered to white and serene, and the soothing classical tunes drifted through the gallery once more. The cloying, sickly smell of rust and salt thickened the air.

The girl tucked her pistols into her belt and patted Norman on the back in what was surely meant as a reassuring gesture. He flinched.

"Let's get to work."

And they did. Every painting, sculpture and wood block was scooped up and carried to the shuttle, stacked and shoved in disarray until the entire gallery was barren and empty. Blood had seeped into the hardwood flooring in a grotesque halo, and most had leaned away in avoidance. Norman just sat, numb, to watch them carry off his babies.

When their work was done, the girl kneeled in front of the shaking Norman. "This is not your fault." Her gaze flickered to the dead man. "It's a little your fault. But there was nothin' you coulda done to stop me walking in here. Nothin', you understanding me?"

Norman met her eyes, sincere and honest as they were, and nodded, wet sobs welling up in his pudgy body. A merc rolled his eyes, but the guard took it to heart. Girl was absolving the old man, but the whys escaped him.

Gear and cargo stowed, the crew disappeared, one by one, into the waiting shuttle, the girl the last to leave the gallery. She paused at the doorway and side-eyed the guard. "They're gonna finger you as an inside man, y'know. My crew is small, the Steve's out there are just the muscle, and I sure could use a man who likes money." She smiled, softer and more come-hither than anything he had seen in the past half an hour. A whore's smile, to be sure. "Or you can just stay here and be bored for the rest of your life."

The guard smirked. Well, hell, what better offers did he have? Besides, there was something in the way she walked and talked he couldn't shake. There was some clarity of conviction about her, like a Shepard or a lawman without the condescension, and he couldn't help but think she lived in the grey areas, middling between the likes of good and bad, legal and illegal. It reminded him of old days.

She seemed to recognise his decision, before he'd made it, and suddenly they were climbing into the back of the shuttle. She held out a hand as they hauled ass, fixing him with an eerie stare. He shook it, "Name's Jayne Cobb." She smiled, widely and beautifully.

"Pleasure to meet you, Jayne. I'm Ava Reynolds. You're a hard man to find."


End file.
